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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 1998)
Bovine brutality Ranchers may be pardoned for harm their cattle inflict TODD MUNSON is a junior broadcasting major and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist For the past two years, the Nebraska State Capitol has been my next door neighbor, nary a huck of a Frisbee away. When my aunt Carol came to visit, she thought it was quite glamorous to live next to the Capitol and the governor’s mansion. That misconception flew out of her head the moment she saw my apart ment. Actually, the Capitol sends me a vibe of inadequacy. Each morning, I wake up with that certain morning stiffness (guys, you know what I mean) and the Dirk Digglerian thoughts begin to flow, until I open the curtain and see a 400-foot phallus staring back at me. After I’ve dressed and fully shrunken to my 6-year-old stature, I start my mornings with a spirited run around the .source of mv inner nain Two laps around is a mile. That is one big organ. Lately, the sidewalk has been a bit crowded. Yep, it’s the time of year when the members of the state Legislature get together to engage in a wild orgy of lawmaking. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend going. I had to for a class once and have returned of my own volition several times since. It’s interesting to see politics in action, and since Nebraska isn’t a militant state like Montana, you can get a ringside seat. The 10-day window during which prospective bills can be introduced recently ended. Of the 470 proposals, there are some odd ones. LB 1170 would prohibit the use of powdered latex products, and LB 1190 would change provisions relating to scrap tires. Then there’s LB984. Introduced by Sen. Roger Wehibrein of Plattsmouth, the bill is a huge favor to cattle ranchers. Without making you endure the painftilly bor ing legal jargon, here’s the gist of it. LB984 would lessen the responsibility of ranchers Mien their cattle get loose and cause an accident. I’m not talking about an accident like a cow escaping and walking through Mrs. Robinson’s daisy patch, but something more seri ous. Death. Each year in Nebraska, a state with decidedly more cows than residents, people die as a result of loose cattle. For instance, Robert Lockling died of a broken neck last October when the car he was driving hit a cow on a Holt County road and rolled into the ditch. Lab tests indicated that there was no alcohol in his bloodstream. If LB984 passes, the owner of the cow wouldn’t have to go too far to prove that he was innocent because the burden of proof would now pass to the victim. The cattle producers are simply crying foul by backing the bill. They say that with hundreds of cattle on hun dreds of acres of land, one or two are bound to get loose, and it shouldn’t be the fault of the rancher unless the fence happens to have a gaping hole in it. Ihe victims families dont seem too happy about this. “I sure hope this doesn’t pass,” Lockling’s widow said. She also added that other accident victims’ families aren’t excited to see the bill enacted. I have to agree with Mrs. Lockling on this one. Imagine for a second that you’re driving down a desolate highway at the prescribed speed limit; suddenly (think high-drama narration here), without warning, a member of the bovine fami ly steps onto the road ahead. You try valiantly to stop, but it’s no use. Splat goes the cow, and smash goes your car. Don’t laugh. This scenario actually happened to my friend Adam’s roommate. Luckily, Malcolm was sitting far enough from the steering wheel that the airbag saved his life instead of decapitating him. The collision totaled his car and now he’s driving around in a ride stolen from a local pimp. Actually, it is kind of funny, so go ahead and laugh. Thanks to the absence of LB984, he collected his damages quite easily. Some of you city folk out there might not get the significance of LB984, so here’s an analogy you can understand. You have a neighbor who breeds pit bulls in his backyard. It’s a big backyard with a fence around the perimeter. After hearing stories of other pit bull breeders who’ve been sued after their dogs escape and maul passersby, your neighbor petitions the city government to help protect him from liability. “I have so many dogs and such a big yard, I can’t possibly keep track of them all,” he says. The measure passes. The bribe by your neighbor didn’t hurt. The next day, you walk past your neighbor’s house to check your mail at the com munal mailbox. (Get ready to think high drama narra tion again.) Suddenly, with out warning, a hungry pit bull jumps over the fence and decides to feast on your jugular vein. All the while, your neighbor sits on the porch laughing to himself because he knows it will be next to impossible to prove that he was negligent and caused your death. there think that columnist have some hidden agenda l| like a vendetta against a residence hall or some thing. For the most part that idea is false, except foi what’s mentioned below. But if I did have a hidden agenda, I wouldn’t be talk ing about it in this space since it’s no longer hidden. If LB984 passes, it will just be another feather in the cap of the jugger naut that is the American beef industry, which is just a gross example of sup porting American deca dence. Using millions of acres to grow food for cat tle that will become peo ple food is just a slap in the face to the starving nations of the world. But the starving folks will get the last laugh. Beef isn’t good for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if f the beef industry will be ; sued someday much like cigarette manufacturers are today. Years of beef ingestion will mess you up worse than falling victim to Buff Bagwell’s patent ed “Buff Blockbuster.” I can hardly wait; the WCW is coming to Lincoln and the Nitro Girls are staying at my place. As you may have guessed, I’m not a big fan of beef. If this £1 co1- / umn offends you in such a way that you feel compelled to send it to cattle ranchers who reside in Amarillo, Texas, go ahead and do it The cattlemen can try to sue me for the $5 I’m Worth. Besides, I’ve already checked, and Oprah says she’s got my Matt Haney/DN CLIFF HICKS is a junior news-editorial and English major and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist. (Author s Note: The extents por trayed here have been relayed as well as was possible -30 hours without sleep makes one see strange things.) I hate cafeteria food. You’d think I’d know better too. It’s not like I have an excuse. I moved off campus to get away from the food. That and to have more than 56 cubic feet of my own space. But foolish me, I happened to be over visiting a friend’s dorm room when the following incident occurred. “Well, I gotta go eat before we take off,” my friend, whom we’ll call “Joe,” said. “Me too,” my other friend, whom we’ll call “Mustafah,” responded. “You already eaten or you want to join us, Cliff?” “I so damn hungry I could go out and try and hunt down a buffalo with my pen,” I replied, “but dorm . Vile vittles Cafeterias serve taste of creepy cuisine food?” “It’s like $6 or something, and it’s not that bad.” Let it be known right now that my friend Mustafah wins the Understatement of the Year for 1998 until further notice. In his mind, “not that bad” falls somewhere between “having one’s legs ripped off and being forced to take one in each major orifice” and “being forced to watch 48 consecu tive hours of ‘Live with Regis and Kathy Lee.’” Paramedics were taking out a student who was flailing in violent contortions, white foam escaping from his mouth. They had actually managed to strap him down to the stretcher, and he was swearing in the loudest tone of voice that the devil had possessed his soul and was coming to laugh at us all, his mis sion to take Dr. Osborne from us having succeeded. “Must be Thursday,” Joe said as he handed his student ID card to the attendant. “You shouldn’t have come, Cliff.” I loved the way he said that. It sounded so dramatic. “You shouldn’t have come, Cliff” now ranks up there in the “No-Kidding?” category with “Maybe we shouldn’t go into the dark cave,” “Gee, that ax looks sharp” and the ever-classic “Think he’ll kill us if we sing ‘It’s a Small World’ again?” He was right; I shouldn’t have come. I handed the attendant my $ 10 bill, which she stared at for a minute, then promptly ate. She looked at me blankly again, then motioned me on my way. I nodded, then proceeded into the despair and gloom of the cafeteria. I caught up with Joe and Mustafah, who were at the entryway of the tunnel you have to walk through to get your food. There was a tiny window along one side of it, and, at the sound of a loud human scream, droplets of blood gingerly sailed through it and onto my tray. We all turned, but one of the attendants, dressed in combat fatigues, pulled a curtain over it. “Pay no mind to that noise behind the curtain,” he said to us. “Probably just someone pricking themselves with a knife.” As we moved along the cart, looking over the “food,” a chili of some kind actually moved. Now, by this point you’re probably wonder ing if I had already eaten and was hallucinating, but Joe and Mustafah saw it too. A long tentacle reached out of it, grabbed my spoon and snapped back into the silver tub. I swear I heard it burp. We passed on the chili. I wish I could tell some really cool story about eyeballs floating in the soup, and in doing so, get every one thinking of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” where the chilled monkey brains are served for dessert, but, after picking up another spoon, I found that the metal was disintegrated by the stuff, so I didn't drink any soup. What I ate, in essence, was bread. Just bread. I had some (uni versity-endorsed) Pepsi and my bread. No butter (in vaguely-offen sive yellow shading). No salad (even with the “sneeze-guards” in place, the bacon bits had already bitten off more than they could chew - a stu dent’s finger - so they were offering parts of it to the sesame seeds). This, I’m afraid, is the whole and bitter truth - in all seriousness, I paid $6.25 for bread and Pepsi. It’s like prison, only caffeinated. The chili tasted so awful I can’t even make analogies about it in public; the lettuce for salad was approach ing a Maui tan, the leaves were that brown; I don’t like soup (not soup I can’t readily identify anyway); and the wise students had already gotten all the pizza. I’m probably making it out to be worse than it actually was, but it was more than enough to make me ques tion the mentality of the place. It’s supposed to be a place you go to eat, and back in the days when I lived on campus, I do remember the occa sional good meal; but the bad meals should be the rarities, not the good ones. All I could think of as I left was the fact that I paid $6.25 for this. $6.25! And they wonder why I moved off campus. Join up with me and do not eat in the cafeterias! If no one eats there, they’ll get the idea and improve the food. We can hope anyway. We only want what’s best for the campus.
